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Thursday, 6 February 2014

I am, once again, feeling the pressure work commitments can apply when there are more instinctual things demanding my attention like poorly imps. It is easy to say 'of course the children should have as long as they need at home with an illness' but I think the times I have said this with passionate nonchalance have been when I have luxuriated in endless days in the home, on standby, ever ready - despite the sleepless nights at work I traded them for.

Having traded my luxuries and although I may be providing once again without living on credit and actually being way more attentive because I'm not sleep deprived, I had all but forgotten the dilemma of not being able to allow them indefinite recuperation time. Each day I take off for them eats into annual leave that would have been spent with them in the school holidays ... precious for precious, no fair.

They say there is always something to feel guilty about and that the scales are always re-adjusting the incredibly fine balance. It is push and pull and some deep grown up breaths and positive thinking is required. For my wild mama heart I need to honour my instincts just enough though - for them and for me. Constantly questioning my actions.

Saturday, 1 February 2014

I have stepped into a surrogate family a work family - the job is incredible and each and every day is so jam packed that I genuinely don't have time to pine self pitieously for those other little hearts of mine. But what I was not prepared for is our differing reactions to one another when I return from work at 6 each day. I was not prepared for the fact that they do not need me in the same way I need them. All they need is to know I am home, my presence is enough, they feel secure and everything is as it should be. But I on the other hand was expecting and needing gushing endless cuddles and snuggles and cooing over each other ... the reality of being mostly ignored was a tough one to swallow. I rode high on adrenalin the first week but as my birthday came and went in the second week I crumbled. It was something I had anticipated yet forgotten in the upheaval of change. But I couldn't get my head around them not needing the same as I did. I let them stay up later the first week each night but as they never rise any later in the mornings they turned into total rat bags, so that was selfish of me and I need to let them get the sleep they need to enjoy their lives especially with their longer school days now. And the weekend that first week was such an anti climax, we didn't hang out or reconnect so I have stripped back to basics and you know, for the first time in our family life I am content to simply watch movies most of the time together - snuggled, cuddling under blankets on the couch. Not my usual style but it works, I think we all benefit from the physical connection weather we all realise it or not.

I don't know how I feel about being out the house like this during the week it is a very fine balance. I know I got kind of manic being a night shift working housewife, every day housewife really isn't my style, I need more focus in my life to keep my mind happy. I get distracted in the home day in day out, not in a good way and I know it effects the quality of my mama'ing. I found my gumption in bucket loads going back to work - wearing a suit jacket with my skinny black jeans and my DM's. I found passion and ways it connects and resonates with all sorts of parts of my existing self. I have found self respect and fewer lines in my brow in earning enough to actually cover my out goings and have resources to buy enough food and enough gas to heat the house and petrol to put in my car to get about in the winter without freezing the kids on the bike. Things have been so tight in recent years I have cried some times, not being able to provide basics without living on credit, money that isn't mine that will cost me more in the long run is an awful feeling. On balance, things are much better. Weekends are a novelty once more. I remember this feeling. This zone will soon become comfortable.

The imps have manifested their reactions to this change in different ways, I am trying to be understanding, I don't always get it right ... but that's what the movies and snuggles are for ... a love fix to remind them I am whole when I have each of them in one of my arms. And I jest not, there is no other feeling like having each part of my heart they each keep nestled as close to mine as is possible. It is like the smell of angels that they exuded as babies - drove me nuts like catnip does cats. Slowly we are finding the rhythm and things that suit and affirm us the most, discarding completely the need to achieve anything other than being together.

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I am a nature loving mama blessed with two wee wildlings living in East Anglia, old land of the Iceni, in England.
I am a weaver of words, stitcher of stories and curious of thoughts. I write experientially, when it flows and needed a space to collate these things for myself and for friends. So here we are. Brew up a tea and make sure it’s a big slice of cake you have there before you sit down and read. Enjoy X